Children of the Night

For those that never know the light, The darkness is a sullen thing; And they, the Children of the Night, Seem lost in Fortune's winnowing. But some are strong and some are weak, — And there's the story. House and home Are shut from countless hearts that seek World-refuge that will never come. And if there be no other life, And if there be no other chance To weigh their sorrow and their strife Than in the scales of circumstance, 'T were better, ere the sun go down Upon the first day we embark, In life's imbittered sea to drown, Than sail forever in the dark. But if there be a soul on earth So blinded with its own misuse Of man's revealed, incessant worth, Or worn with anguish, that it views No light but for a mortal eye, No rest but of a mortal sleep, No God but in a prophet's lie, No faith for honest doubt to keep; If there be nothing, good or bad, But chaos for a soul to trust, — God counts it for a soul gone mad, And if God be God, He is just. And if God be God, He is Love; And though the Dawn be still so dim, It shows us we have played enough With creeds that make a fiend of Him. There is one creed, and only one, That glorifies God's excellence; So cherish, that His will be done, The common creed of common sense. It is the crimson, not the gray, That charms the twilight of all time; It is the promise of the day That makes the starry sky sublime; It is the faith within the fear That holds us to the life we curse; — So let us in ourselves revere The Self which is the Universe! Let us, the Children of the Night, Put off the cloak that hides the scar! Let us be Children of the Light, And tell the ages what we are!
As long as Fame's imperious music rings Will poets mock it with crowned words august; And haggard men will clamber to be kings As long as Glory weighs itself in dust.
Drink to the splendor of the unfulfilled, Nor shudder for the revels that are done: The wines that flushed Lucullus are all spilled, The strings that Nero fingered are all gone.